Hurtling Toward Inevitability
by PageOfWands
Summary: She's not yet the woman he loves, but she's getting closer every day. In the "Living Amongst Ghosts"-verse; non-DH compliant.


**Title:** Hurtling Toward Inevitability

**Author:** PageOfWands

**Summary:** She's not yet the woman he loves, but she's getting closer every day.

**Author's Note:** I haven't written anything in a while -- forgive me if I'm rusty.

_Tears rolled down my cheeks as I answered. "No, I mean -- you really CAN'T. I -- I know you in the future, Neville." He reeled back as if I'd slapped him. "I've met you. I saw you when I was a little girl. You don't come with me."_

_"You didn't tell me," he whispered. "You never said." He was crying now too._

_"I didn't want to say anything," I choked out. "I didn't think it was right. But you've been to my flat -- you came for Mum's thirtieth birthday party. Other times, too."_

_-- Chapter 26: Realizations, from "Living Amongst Ghosts"_

Ginny's flat was lit up like a star; I could see that much from the outside. Dozens of shapes slid or darted past the kitchen window, into and out of my view from the rain-drenched street.

I glanced, for the hundredth time, at the invitation in my hand.

_Ginny Is Turning Twenty-Nine . . . Again!  
Saturday, August 13, 2011  
Dinner party begins at 6:00  
R.S.V.P. by owl on or before July 25_

I'd responded that I would be coming, not out of any real desire to go, but rather because I knew I would. Damn the girl.

Immediately I felt guilty for harboring such a thought, and it was the guilt that finally impelled me to walk up to Ginny's building and climb the six flights of stairs to her flat. I'd barely knocked when Fred and George threw open the door and all but dragged me inside. "If it isn't Neville --" "-- valiant slayer of Death Eaters --" "-- and the bravest purveyor of plants in all the British Isles!"

"Hello, chaps," I said, and I could have kicked myself for allowing my voice to sound so strained.

"Sounds like someone is insufficiently cheerful!" said one of the twins, and he pushed something cold and fizzing into my hand.

I wouldn't drink. That had been one of the promises I'd made to myself before getting ready this evening -- to tell the truth, I'd made that promise to myself at every one of these occasions over the course of many years -- and one I wholly intended to keep tonight. I needed every ounce of my self-control. So I smiled as convincingly as I could and placed the drink gently back into the hands of whichever twin had given it to me. Then I sidestepped them both and went to find the birthday girl.

She was sitting on a loveseat, cradling one of her nephews -- I never could keep track of which Weasley had married whom and created more Weasleys. When I approached her, she looked up, and she smiled tentatively. "Neville? Would you like to hold Phineas? He's Percy's new one."

I smiled and obligingly took the babe from her arms. He had, unsurprisingly, a thatch of red hair atop a Percy-shaped head. He was deeply asleep, for which I was deeply grateful. "How old is he?"

"Six months," she said.

I nodded and rocked the baby back and forth. "Hush litte baby, don't you bawl," I sang ever so softly. "Daddy's gonna buy you a Diricawl. If that Diricawl won't sing, Daddy's gonna buy you a goblin ring . . . ."

"I didn't know you sang," Ginny said, looking pleased.

"Gran sang that one -- well, she said 'Granny,' not 'Daddy.'"

"Naturally. And have you ever even seen a Diricawl?"

"I think I saw one in the National Wizarding Zoo in Derby," I offered. "Then again, they might just Conjure one every hour. It's not as if they could really keep one caged."

She laughed then. "Thank you so much for coming all the way from Cork."

"Thank you for inviting me," I said formally. "And many happy returns."

"Cheers, Nev. Have you made the rounds, seen everyone?" She immediately paled a bit. "You know -- Ron, Hermione, Dean, Seamus?"

"Not yet," I admitted. "I wanted to wish you a happy birthday before I got lost in the parade."

"Give me the baby back and go have fun," Ginny ordered, and I handed Phineas back to her obediently. She turned her attention to the baby, and I could see the near-desperation in her eyes. She so wanted Harry back, so wanted more babies of her own.

She had at least five years to wait for that, I knew. And even then she might still end up alone.

I glided amongst the guests like a ghost. I carried on conversations with my old dormmates and promptly forgot their substance thirty seconds after turning away. My heart wasn't in it. My heart was --

-- standing in the doorway in dress robes and stocking feet. Her red hair was chopped terribly short, giving her a pixie-like appearance. She was surveying the room; she'd clearly just escaped from the rec room to which all the children had been relegated. Ginny was doing her best to make it a party for both adults and children, and she thought separation was the best tack for this. Parents drifted in to check on their offspring, but for the most part, the two groups moved in their own spheres and did not bother each other.

But there was Susan, all legs and arms and huge green eyes. She was twelve years old.

I was staring at her, and I couldn't stop. She caught my gaze and lit up, darting between slightly drunk guests to my side. "Neville!"

This was why I'd refused any and all alcohol. I had to be excruciatingly careful. "Hello, Susan."

"Mum stuck me in the kids' room, but I'm the oldest one in there by at least a year, except for Edouard, I suppose, but he's impossible anyhow."

"Don't you like your cousins?"

"I LOVE my cousins, but that's not the POINT." She made a move as if to toss her hair, but she had none to toss. "I'm practically a grown-up now."

"No you're not," I said automatically.

She looked hurt, and I immediately regretted the comment. "I suppose you'll be an adult in only five years," I admitted, trying to make her happy again, and it worked like gangbusters.

"Less than five years," she said proudly. "Four years and five months."

I knew. I knew, also, that she would spend her seventeenth birthday wrapped in my arms beneath a wand tree that I now lovingly tended to in my backyard.

"D'you want to see my room?" she almost demanded, and looked at me expectantly before turning on her heel and walking toward a part of the flat that was empty of guests.

"I don't know if I ought --"

"I'm INVITING you, Neville," Susan said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like how Mum said she doesn't want people traipsing all over the flat. I want you to see my room!"

I glanced around, looking for Ginny, but didn't see her. A warning klaxon had gone off in my head, but I resolutely ignored it. I knew what it would look like to anyone who happened to see me heading off in this direction. I knew. But at the moment, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Susan threw open the door to her room, and I took the precautionary step of not advancing past her doorway. No one could misconstrue this, could they? I was innocently surveying her room.

Her room was a jumble of childhood and adolescence. A dozen stuffed animals crowded at the foot of the bed, but her bookshelf was filled with tomes on every subject from pre-Hogwarts magical communities to famous announcers of the WWN. She caught me looking at them and said in embarrassment, "Aunt Mi-Mi bought me most of those."

"Have you read them?"

"Nearly all of them," she admitted. "I haven't quite gotten to the Mermish culture series."

The wallpaper on her walls depicted phoenixes bursting into life and burning into death, over and over again. I smiled at that, remembering Fawkes, who had disappeared around the Battle for Hogwarts, though I'd heard some people claimed to have seen him. Susan had tacked some things atop the wallpaper -- Wizarding travel agent adverts ("FLOO TO BEAUTIFUL SKYE," "BRUJANA: THE ONLY WIZARDING VILLAGE IN SPAIN," "EXPERIENCE THE ANCIENT WIZARDING SITES OF GREECE"), pictures her young cousins had drawn her, Hogwarts papers on which she'd done particularly well. On her desk, more papers were scattered, but a single framed photo occupied the place of honor in the middle of the desk. It was, unsurprisingly, of her parents, at Bill and Fleur's wedding. They were both in silver dress robes. If I remembered the story correctly, Susan herself would actually snap this photo. Harry and Ginny clung to each other within the frame, Ginny looking determined, Harry resigned. Neither of them looked particularly happy, but their body language was unmistakable: _I will not give up this person without a fight,_ each of them said without a word.

"You shared a dorm with Dad, right?" Susan asked, startling me out of my reverie.

"Yes. All seven years." I contined surveying her bedroom, not looking at her as I answered her questions.

"Were you two close?"

"Sometimes," I said. "He was much, much closer to Ron and Hermione."

She frowned. "What do you remember most about him?"

I chuckled a little. "He used to have terrible dreams and wake up screaming. That happened at least once every year."

"Terrible dreams?" she pressed.

"Oh, about Voldemort and such," I said, not actually knowing the story behind most of his night terrors.

"But he was brave."

I finally looked into her eyes, and saw how stricken she was. "Bravery isn't not being scared," I explained gravely. "It's being scared -- scared out of your mind sometimes -- and doing the brave thing anyway. That's why we were all Gryffindors -- we were smart enough to be terrified, but brave enough to fight."

She relaxed. "I like you, Neville."

I froze. Her tone was completely innocent, but I was nervous nonetheless. "Why is that?"

"You're not like the other grown-ups, like my aunts and uncles. You don't treat me like a kid."

"You're not a kid," I said, and at that, something inside me began to crumble.

Truth be told, I'd been around a lot more when Susan was little, because I used to be able to pretend that she was actually my child, mine and Susan's, and that Susan had just stepped out to pick up the milk or the Floo powder. Susan as a child was just another child, so I could make-believe to my heart's content.

But this little pixie bouncing on her bed was so obviously Susan herself that it nearly stopped my heart. I could not go on pretending. Which also meant I could no longer see Susan. The thought of physical intimacy with a child disgusted me beyond words, so I was not worried that I would take advantage of her. No, I was afraid of falling in love with her all over again. It had been thirteen years since she'd left me, and I was just beginning to feel fully healed.

"Check it out," she said suddenly, and flicked her wand, knowing full well I wouldn't reprimand her for using magic. The diffuse light in her room dimmed to blackness, and I could see that the phoenixes on the wall were burning bright, giving off their own light in the darkness, tiny stars in the sky of Susan's world. Susan, sitting on the bed, gave me an inscrutable look, and I was reminded violently of the young woman I'd known and loved.

I'd reached the end of my rope. I turned and fled, weaving through the full rooms until I spotted Ginny.

"Thought I'd let you know I've got to leave, Ginny," I said, attempting to sound courteous and unruffled.

There was no fooling her. "Are you all right?"

I smiled lopsidedly. "Let's just say, you're not going to be seeing much of me for the next five years," I said calmly.

Ginny's expression was instantly wary and sympathetic, equal parts a mother and my friend. "Oh?"

"I can't pretend anymore," I said. "She's so much herself."

The birthday girl softened a bit. "She's always been so much herself."

"Yes. But I do believe we've reached the point of no return."

Ginny leaned forward and kissed me, oh so gently, on both cheeks. "I'll come visit you in Ireland when she's away at school."

"I'd like that," I said truthfully.

"Be well."

"Many happy returns," I said mechanically, and I grabbed my jacket from the front hall closet before slipping out the front door, down the six flights of steps, and back onto the pavement, which still smelled like rain. I looked back up at the sixth floor before making my way to the Apparition point. Susan's room was dark, but -- yes, I saw her white face pressed against the window. She was looking down at me with a disappointed expression.

I thought about it for a moment, then Summoned a few dahlias from a nearby garden. I charmed them so they would, if my charm held, look fresh-cut forever. I Severed a strip from my dress robes and tied the flowers into a semi-respectable bouquet. Then I took a scrap of parchment from my robes and used my wand to make the words "Good luck in your second year at Hogwarts" appear in my hand on it. I used a Sticking charm to attach the tag to the ribbon, and Levitated the whole mess up to her window. Her expression swiftly changed to one of delight, and she threw open her window to snatch the bouquet from midair.

"See you soon!" she whispered down.

I smiled ruefully. She would see me soon enough; no one could stop her from hurtling toward that particular inevitability, for which I was selfishly and profoundly grateful. With her watchful face on me, I waved once before turning slowly and walking down the echoing street to make my way back home.


End file.
